


Spare the Child, Spoil the Lover

by archea2



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Credence is a fast learner, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Mention of Past Abuse, Percival is a loving teacher, Romance, Spanking, erotic spanking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-02
Updated: 2017-01-02
Packaged: 2018-09-14 06:48:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9166819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/archea2/pseuds/archea2
Summary: "That hag said wrong. And I would never beat a child, Credence. No more than I’d take a child to my bed. This, my man –" Mr Graves sighed a little, but the smile had gone to his eyes, glistening like the dark sweet cherry in Madam Picquery’s cocktail glass, that always stood on her desk "– is called spanking, and the line between the two is as wide as the line between No-Maj and Maj."





	

**Author's Note:**

> While the title is a play on the Biblical motto, "Spare the rod, spoil the child", Credence here - as in canon, according to JKR's script - is an adult. I see him as slightly younger than his actor - 21 perhaps - but definitely not a minor. 
> 
> Two consenting adults at play, then.

Some people’s bodies fit them like a glove; some, like a straitjacket. Credence knew in which group he belonged.  
  
Or thought he did, until he agreed to live with Mr Graves, who had filed a request for magical asylum on Credence’s behalf a day before he was taken, only to renew it first thing after he was released. Credence, swirled and sickened by the dark vortex within himself, had stood by and watched as Mr Graves fought for him - fought, he thought, like the black-and-white heroes in the copy of _Movie Weekly_ he’d once found in the street and hidden in his stack of pamphlets, to his later cost. They were tall and close-shaven, the heroes, their chin regal and their hair slicked back, with dark eyebrows that spoke of _fierce but fair_ , and Mr Graves was all of that. He fought like an eagle ("like a Fireball": Newt Scamander), and Credence gave him his whole trust again.  
  
Even after they learnt to share a roof, and he found that Mr Graves could smile - could, once in a while, cook in his shirtsleeves and hum a jazz tune that wasn't sin here - his first vision endured. There was the crimefighter, and there was the nurturer, and they sort of slipped into each other, making one whom Credence loved, without canceling each other.  
  
Like God and Mr. Rudolph Valentino made one, sort of, if God would forgive him for turning Him into a Graves standard.  
  
Kissing the one Graves struck a match, that highlit the heart of the paradox. Credence felt the authoritarian in Mr Graves's rough-spoken "Of course I want this" and the robust circle of his arm; but it was the carer who kissed back, who inflamed sensation in Credence's mouth with his and later coaxed Credence's tongue -  _your unruly member_ , Ma used to say - out of hiding and into new, intoxicating play.  
  
They went slowly about the business of pleasure. Mr Graves wouldn't have it any other way, even though he was a widower, learnt in the turns and twists of the flesh – not all of them, he laughed, but some, _acushla_ \- and walked Credence through them. Just as, in daylight, he would take Credence one step further into himself, teach him to hold up or let go his secret pulse of magic. Ultimately, it felt the same – that a lifetime fund of _wrong_  could glow with _right_  under Mr Graves's experienced hand.

  
Magic was a sunlit cloud now, fountaining out of his body one charm after the other. But it never shone so bright as when Credence leant back against Mr Graves and let his mentor's fingers have custody of his wrist or arm; closed and opened his eyes to his deep-voiced command; exulted in his own trust. In bed, too, Credence found that he liked it for Mr Graves to rule their time. They never did anything before he was told about it and asked if he liked it, if he wished for it; and he always nodded with a soft frisson at the thought that Mr Graves would then take over.  
  
His life with Ma was still halfway to becoming his past. At times, Credence would glance down at his wrists and the underside of his arms, chafed crimson like his knees from rubbing against the sheets. His other unruly member twitched at the sight; but the redness troubled him. He remembered an evil man stroking it away, and then another stroke, harsh, leaving his cheek bruised and castigated. And so they merged, past and present, into a fog of sensual anxiety.  
  
"Are you all right?" Mr Graves would ask; caring, frowning; on the verge of troubled, and Credence would push the fog away. Mr Graves had made it clear that he wanted him to forget the past, and he was not doing right by Mr Graves in letting these thoughts creep in.  
  
Days came and went, given over to work; nights – not all of them, but as many and as soon as Mr Graves could spare them – were all play. Credence was still one part nerve, three parts nerves, and it could have been one or the others that, on a winter night when they were lazying on the big mahogany couch, made him tickle the close-cropped nape of Mr Graves's neck. 

Next thing he knew, they were both at it, giving it free rein: he giggling, eager, pitching a scherzo of quick, wicked fingers up his mentor's sides while Mr Graves shied this way and that, laughing, trying to pinion him to the velvet belly of the couch. The end result was him on his stomach, his upper end locked inside of a firm arm-hold and his pajama bottoms wriggled half way down the swell of his buttocks. Then, he felt it - no, _sensed_ it first: Mr Graves arching his other arm back, then a fresh tickle of air to his bare skin, barely perceptible, as the arm swooped dow, eagle-like; landed; and landed a firm crack across Credence's firm, resonant flesh.  
  
Touch fell hard upon sound: one sense gearing in while the other was still full-blown and quivering. He gasped, every nerve called out while more of him grew and quivered from the part of him pressed against the sofa's belly. It was too much, and the too-much of it tore a cry from him. 

He didn't know why the sound, or what the heat, flaring up on the stroke of that instant. But it burned bright and exciting, more than any pleasure before; and as it did, Credence remembered when he had last burnt _there_. It had been leather, thin and venomous as a snake. It hadn't been skin, and it had whistled, its white-hot intensity worse than any pain before. Still, a burn is a burn, a truth learnt at Ma’s knee – or over it, when the occasion called.

Shame it was, then. Had to be. Shivering, remembering protocol, Credence pressed his face into the velvet cushion and resigned himself to what had to follow after _you’ve gone too far_.

He started at the slow warmth that was the next touch - Mr Graves’s tender growl enveloping him while his palm enveloped Credence’s lower cheeks, gathering and rubbing them gently, until the burn was spread equally over their surface. "You little scamp," Mr Graves said, and Credence’s member gave a shy leap under him. He willed it not to, his face drowned in the heat of memory-shame.

It had never been like that with Ma. He hadn’t been hard and wanting, none of the times she’d had him take off his clothes first and lectured him about humility, severely, while his wilting dick showed him how to retract into that little-boy space that was his proper place. Now he waited for the growl to harshen, for _disobedient_ and _disciplined_ to usher in the next cut of – but no. Only the light tattoo of Mr Graves’s fingertips over the warm surface of his too-thin rump, prickling it with new sensations. Wrong, wrong! He wasn’t supposed to feel like this, not when –

"You need the belt, sir!" he cried, a plea to be set right as his face began to melt under the burn.

The next sound nearly escaped his misery: Mr Graves’s intake of breath, biting on a curse, while his fingers stilled. The next moment was fumbling, was empty; the press of arm to Credence’s shoulders gone, leaving him even more wretched, until he felt his couchfellow at his side again, kneeling down on the rug, one hand on his hair.

"…Credence?"

"I’m sorry, I’m sorry," Credence sobbed from the heart. "Just, can you not use your hand? Please? I’ll take it all, I swear, and I’ll never offend you again. Just, please. It won’t feel so good if it’s not your hand."

"Mercy Lewis," Mr Graves muttered, and - for the first time since their encounter on a dark church porch, months ago - sounded utterly and unwizardly lost.

Credence tried to explain, but it all spilled out in a mess. Silence, then.

" _Acushla_ , will you look at me?"

(He had mistaken it for a spell, before Mr Graves told him about his kin and the Old Irish endearment that had crossed the line with them, on the ship bearing his grandparents. _Pulse of my heart_. Like Newt Scamander’s case, the little word was bigger on the inside – big enough to pull Credence’s head just a fraction away from the cushions.) 

"Good," Mr Graves approved. He let Credence peer at him, at his smile, before he said, "Do I look angry to you?"

"…No." A little hoarse, but not wet, thank God. Mr Graves’s smile grew, as if his face was lit up from the inside. 

"No. Of course not. How could I be, when I’m so happy, knowing this feels good to you – that my hand can bring you joy. Although it was inconsiderate of me to – but never mind that. It _did_ feel good?"

"Yes, but…" Credence propped himself up on an elbow and Mr Graves leant a bit forward, so the next words could be spoken from lips to lips. "How could it? Ma always said a whipping was the Good Lord’s given rule to chasten a child." 

The answer was low and savage – for real, unlike the mock-growl that, Credence now realized, had been mere play of tone, like the play of Mr Graves’s hand.

"That hag said wrong. And I would never beat a child, Credence. No more than I’d take a child to my bed. This, my man –" Mr Graves sighed a little, but the smile had gone to his eyes, glistening like the dark sweet cherry in Madam Picquery’s cocktail glass, that always stood on her desk "– is called spanking, and the line between the two is as wide as the line between No-Maj and Maj." 

"…Well, it felt like magic."

"Really?" The answer was a hum of breath.

Credence touched his lips to the hum, to the lover’s hope, before he whispered, "Give it to me again." 

"Credence." Graves was kissing him back; a warm, intent trail down his cheek, around to the soft dip behind his ear. "Credence, you have to be sure."

"Please." The excitement was back, the straining for more – more thrill, more learning. More magic. 

He felt Graves shift as he rose to his feet, and fumbled up in his wake. They stood, Credence vertical again, both breathing faster, both determined. "The man I take to my bed," Graves murmured,"and over my knee is my partner. My equal. He says the word, the magic stops. Got it?" 

Credence caught the hint to their very first lesson and flashed it back. " _Finite_." 

"Good." And Graves, sitting again, spoke the next word under his breath. The candlelight flickered and dimmed, leaving precedence to the fireglow which bathed the space where Graves sat; his parted legs; the sharp pat of his hand to his thigh. "Then come and ride my lap."

Credence looked down at the warm lap, his heart nearly knocking itself out. Slowly, knowingly, he stepped to where the hand was now raised in invitation and took it. His was tugged forward, and he let the force field shift between them; put one knee on the couch and heard it creak almost voluptously as he climbed to take his proper place across Mr Graves’s legs. They opened and closed again under him, leaving him in no doubt of his own arousal as it arched into him, his cock nearly suffocated between that press of strong thighs and Credence’s own weight.   
  
His pajama bottoms were at half-mast again. He expected them to be taken down all the way, but instead Mr Graves slipped a hand under him and pulled at the cottony fabric, tucking it up and between Credence’s legs so that it clung accordingly to the swell of his buttocks. The fabric was pulled into the crack between, his cheeks, exposing them in their fleshly existence, vulnerably there and a showpiece in their own right. Then Mr Graves’s hand went back in play.  _Slap. Slap._  Light, light, medium light, a firm rap dealt to each hemisphere. The burn, which had abated, stirred up – almost, but not quite. Rather, it felt like Mr Graves’s hand was stealing a peck or two, or twenty.  
  
Then it stopped altogether and Mr Graves was moulding himself to the long span of Crendence's back, his voice much too teasing for his age. " _Finite_?"  
  
"No!" Vibrant with indignation, and he knew without turning his head that Graves was grinning. Credence slid his hips up in retaliation; cried out as the heat fused through his lap-trapped cock. "Please," he stammered. "Please, please, take them off!"  
  
He was answered with Mr Graves’s fingernails, dragged slowly, almost pensively over the curve of his left cheek. It called more nerves, never acknowledged before, to jubilant life. "I think I will," Percival Graves said "Oh, yes, I will. Look at this gorgeous pink number. I want to see it all."  
  
And the precise-gestured hands tugged his pajama down, baring inch after inch of skin, flushed and avid for – "More," Credence said plaintively, eyes closed, and, when no more came, "Percival, damnit!".  
  
He was too far gone to register the curse or the breach of protocol, only Percival Graves’s chuckle before he was tossed back into position, Graves’s arm holding him iron-like as he took the upper hand again. This time, there was no idling; no respite between the neat, expert cracks of Graves’s palm sealing itself to his backside, flat-handed, curve-fingered, right, left, under,  _between_  – the shock precipitated into a sharper, electrifying jolt – until the heat came from every angle. Credence found that the slaps were jouncing his frame back and fro, their stoked-up pace stoking up the fever until his body flung restraint aside and took over, rocked itself into that hospitable lap, fast, faster, oblivious to the – now soft - friction of Graves’s hand urging on his sensitized flesh.  
  
Once, twice more, before all the heat zoned in to squeeze a long, hard coda of ecstasy from him.   
  
"… _Finite_ ," he remembered to say after a while, and frowned at the answering burst of laughter.   
  
"You don’t have to say it after,  _acushla_."  
  
"…Oh." Credence relaxed into the haze; felt a kiss and a Latin word to his fiery verso that took away the sharper flame, leaving the pleasant throb. Then somebody started disentangling the two of them, and he held his hand out, reluctant to break contact. He felt warm and slaked; a bright, soaring cloud of satiation, as if he’d been puzzled out rather than blown apart. Graves’s thumb stroked a line across his fingers.  
  
"Just stay as you are, and I’ll Apparate us straight in bed. How do you feel?"  
  
"Hmm. Warm. Tingly?"  
  
Graves laughed again, the sound now familiar, a piece of the puzzle. It saw them through the next jot of time, which saw Credence into bed, in Percival’s arms, his pajamas once more tucked up. "Thank you," he said groggily.  
  
The next kiss was for his forehead, now released from its bowl-cut gaol.

"You liked it?"  
  
"Hmm." Credence sank further into the sleepy, pacified lull of his own body. "Sh’d do’t again."  
  
"Good. Then perhaps, one day, if you feel like it" – low-voiced words, to be heard at the listener’s will, but stamped with the determination that was another Graves standard – "you can return the favor."   
  
Credence’s eyes opened in the dark, his heart suddenly alert to this blank and unspoken cheque of faith. He struggled to answer; but sleep had the upper hand now, and the low sound of their breaths catching up with each other. Or perhaps there was no need for words. Only his face, burrowing against Percival’s chest; only the night-blue peace owning them, another promise of  _one day_.


End file.
